Interesting Facts Japan

Maddy Payne Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Assistant Language Teachers in Japan come from different countries worldwide, bringing different kinds of English with them. In my experience, American English is often the most sought-after version of English. Some countries highly value Language Teachers from the USA, which often matches their American-style textbooks and resources. Sometimes people are even overlooked for job opportunities due to their Australian accent and British English background. Well, Japan is no different in this regard. Many Japanese schools hold American English in high regard, so what is it like being an Australian-English teacher in Japan? It's no secret that Japanese students love America. A frequently asked question when doing any kind of...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Yueyang Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linfen Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Taking a language class can be intimidating because students tend to feel nervous and lose self-confidence in the learning process. I’ve become aware of this through my experiences as both an English teacher in Japan and as a student learning Japanese. Creating rapport through personalized activities is a great way to ease nerves while learning a language and to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) are two of the main varieties of the English language. There are other different varieties of English that exist such as Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South Asian and African English. Although English was introduced to America through the colonization period by the British, the two varieties of English have evolved to be quite different from each other in certain areas. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Shanique H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. One of these areas is vocabulary, which is one of the most notable differences between the two varieties. For instance, British English – post, American English –...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences There are several challenges Japan faces when it comes to learning English as a second language. Japanese culture is a bubble. Everything, including their ad signs, TV, games, government, studies, work and even the internet is filled with one language; Japanese. In a world of globalization, where your goods and services can come from literally any part of the globe. Japan is one of the few remaining homogenous cultures where English is still seen as an optional language. As the global economy becomes more global, the English language will likely become less optional, but essential. In addition to the cultural issues, Japan's English curriculum in the school is largely unchanged from the ‘60s according to my Japanese cousins and uncles still living...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Hi everyone, here's Linda again from ITTT. Today we're talking about something really interesting and exciting, teaching English in Asia. Also, all you need to know about how to get to Asia, the countries in Asia with the highest demand, and also the best sort of recruiters and teaching job platforms where you can find the best jobs for teaching English in Asia. I'm super excited about this topic today as I have been pretty much based in Asia since 2012. I spent some time in China and I am now in South Korea where I've been for the last six years. I'm so excited to share my experience with you guys and hopefully maybe some of you can also share your experience, if you have experience in teaching English in Asia. If you want to know anything...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Japanese is certainly one of the most interesting languages in the world thanks to its three types of writing (hiragana, katakana and kanji). This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Desiree I. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. After the outbreak of intercontinental travel (therefore with the appearance of commercialization and missionaries around the world) many terms of different languages, including English ones, also became part of the language of Japan. The main problem is that many sounds present in the English language are non-existent in the Japanese language; this means that the pronunciation of many terms has been adapted according to the language standards of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English is causing many problems in Asian countries which can be seen just by the high demand for English teachers - including ESL teachers. One of the countries is Japan, a country with a good economy and a society well known for their kindness and politeness, but unfortunately also for the low number of English speakers. There are many reasons why English is likely to pose problems in Japan but there are many possibilities to improve the English lessons to offer lessons that help Japanese students to achieve a higher English level. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Eileen Cathrin B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. So why is it that Japanese students struggle...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Destinations This ITTT TEFL article looks at teaching English as a foreign language abroad if you do not have a degree. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate explains how songs can help in teaching grammar. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on the teaching skills important for the classroom. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on teaching grammar. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on using games in teaching. Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on volunteer...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Destinations This ITTT TEFL article looks at teaching English as a foreign language abroad if you do not have a degree. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate explains how songs can help in teaching grammar. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on the teaching skills important for the classroom. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on teaching grammar. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on using games in teaching. Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In this blog post, our recent TEFL graduate shares their thoughts on volunteer...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In Japan, elementary schools typically employ an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) to provide support to homeroom teachers during English classes. I have been working in such a capacity for the past two and a half years, first through an international program and currently as a direct-hire via my local city hall. Until recently, mandatory English classes at the elementary school level have been limited to the fifth and sixth grades, but new national requirements are being rolled out that will require mandatory English classes as early as third grade while doubling English classroom hours for the fifth and sixth grades. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rodica C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Destinations The Middle East has been a popular region for teaching English abroad for many years but how do you know which country is the best fit for you? Each individual country has its own attractions and characteristics, some you might like and others you might not. Take a look at our country match guide to help you decide which destination is the one for you. Mark Crocker Destinations Although Latin America is a popular destination for teaching English abroad, there are many different countries to choose from and they each have something to offer. Our country match guide should help you decide which of these top destinations would best suit your individual personality. Jon ITTT Destinations This ITTT TEFL article looks at ten different and popular...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This ITTT TEFL article describes why lesson planning is important and how you can use the lesson planning process to make yourself a better teacher. Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This ITTT TEFL article looks at 30 course books produced by a variety of EFL publishers for general English lessons for children. Mark Crocker TEFL Information Working online is an increasingly popular option in many professions and English language teaching is no different. Unfortunately, several online employers insist on their teachers having a degree which can put many people off. However, there are still some good options out there for teachers without a degree. Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This ITTT TEFL article looks at 12...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This ITTT TEFL article describes why lesson planning is important and how you can use the lesson planning process to make yourself a better teacher. Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This ITTT TEFL article looks at 30 course books produced by a variety of EFL publishers for general English lessons for children. Mark Crocker TEFL Information Working online is an increasingly popular option in many professions and English language teaching is no different. Unfortunately, several online employers insist on their teachers having a degree which can put many people off. However, there are still some good options out there for teachers without a degree. Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas This ITTT TEFL article looks at 12...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Destinations The Middle East has been a popular region for teaching English abroad for many years but how do you know which country is the best fit for you? Each individual country has its own attractions and characteristics, some you might like and others you might not. Take a look at our country match guide to help you decide which destination is the one for you. Mark Crocker Destinations Although Latin America is a popular destination for teaching English abroad, there are many different countries to choose from and they each have something to offer. Our country match guide should help you decide which of these top destinations would best suit your individual personality. Jon ITTT Destinations This ITTT TEFL article looks at ten different and popular...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Hi my name is Linda from ITTT, international TEFL and TESOL Training and I'm back again today for another live session. If you can hear me and see me please let me know as I'm trying out a new mic today so if that is working well it would be good to know. So please leave a quick comment to say hi and where you're watching from. I have been living in South Korea for five and a half years, so for me right now it's 10:00 a.m. Friday morning. Let me know where you are tuning in from and what time it is where you are. We can get started on today's topic which is the best government programs for teaching English abroad. If you're interested in teaching English abroad then you should definitely keep watching as there's a lot of good stuff coming...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Chengdu-shi? Are you interested in teaching English in Chengdu-shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Check out which city/town you may be more interested in and start your journey| Learners of English living abroad, whether residing in a non-native speaking country for work or study, will face stressors that will be brought into the regular classroom, as well as the ESL classroom Do we have to learn grammar? This is probably the most repeated question in a typical...  [Read more]

Zainab Sadriwala Alumni Experiences It’s almost been many months since we started the process of transitioning towards online education due to the COVID-19 outbreak. In fact, there has been a complete shift from the traditional way of teaching to a virtual method. The world has come to believe, and more so understand, that virtual classrooms remain the need of today. Initially, it seemed a rather uphill task for many but with time and effort, teachers around the world have jumped on the bandwagon of teaching online. This remodeling of our classrooms has generated new innovative methods of teaching which, even in the post lockdown period, should not be forgotten or done away with. In this blog post, we discuss some of these useful methods and learn how we can incorporate them into our...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Japan is a country with a long history, deep tradition, and vibrant culture. Within this culture sits the Japanese language. At first, being a spoken language and then adopting the Chinese Writing System, Japanese has grown and changed into what it is today. If you look at all languages, most Western languages originate from a set family, such as Romance Languages (which became today’s Spanish, French, Italian, etc). But Japanese (as most Asian languages) was formed from entirely different roots. These fundamental differences mean that the method of learning these languages has a lot to do with memorization and repetitive practice of the Chinese symbols and the words they represent. Which means it is difficult to find any common ground between it...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Huaikou Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Chengdu Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Upon signing up for this course I had a great, dreamy vision of how wonderful it would be to teach English in a foreign land. But as is often the case when someone first has a dream regarding an endeavor they want to pursue, the dream was lacking in a complete understanding of what it would entail to be successful. I feel through working on the TEFL coursework I now...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Beiji Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Xianyang Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Japan is a country with a long history, deep tradition, and vibrant culture. Within this culture sits the Japanese language. At first, being a spoken language and then adopting the Chinese Writing System, Japanese has grown and changed into what it is today. If you look at all languages, most Western languages originate from a set family, such as Romance Languages...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Language acquisition often involves four skills. These skills are further divided into two groups receptive skills (reading and listening) and productive skills (writing and speaking). Not all languages have a corresponding writing system however, learners of English will have to learn all these skills to be proficient in their use of English. Reading is more than just calling words on paper, In this essay, the importance of reading in language acquisition will be discussed on the basis that reading influences vocabulary expansion, facilitates the practice of word pronunciation and finally sparks and improves the imagination. These concepts will be discussed from the standpoint of English language acquisition in Japanese senior high schools. This post...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Yes, in my opinion, English is for sure a global language. Even as a little girl I was simply intrigued by that language. I like it so much, that I even tried to make up some words. It seems to me that it's a kind of language that can easily go through your ears. It's elegant and very special, al least that's how I see it. Nowadays, it's a world spread language that is taught in schools around the globe. English is everywhere. We can find it to be the main language in computers, mobile phones, video games. Meetings are being held in English, there are restaurant menus all around the world, written in English, there are street signs in English. Youngsters communicate in English via e-mails, social networks, video games and so much more... English has...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The accelerated growth of English as a global language has made people from all around the world realize how important this one is nowadays, even in our everyday life we find English words and content wherever we look, technology, movies, tv, business, and internet are only some of them. Therefore, people from different nationalities around the globe, show a lot of interest in learning the English language. This time we are going to focus on Latin and Hispanic students and the challenges that these Spanish speakers encounter when learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dayana M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. People assume that the term Spanish speaker is...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Hi everybody wherever you are right now. I'm in South Korea and it's 10 a.m. Friday, so good morning. I'm back here again today, my name is Linda from ITTT if you've been here before hi and if this is your first time watching thanks so much for tuning in and taking the time, we really appreciate it. If at any time during this live session you have any questions, feel free to drop your comments in the comment section from whichever platform you're watching from. We are streaming live on Facebook and on YouTube at the same time. If you can see me and hear me just leave a hi in the comment box, that would be highly appreciated so that I know that everything is working well. For the first couple of minutes let's just have a chat...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Hello everybody and welcome. We're actually also going live on Instagram today, so I'm going to check that out as well as the usual Facebook and YouTube. Hopefully everything will work fine. I hope everybody can hear me well and can see me. This is the first time that we're actually live on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at the same time, so I have a lot of screens here in front of me. Hello there, I see somebody tuned in on Instagram and we have a few people here on Facebook and YouTube already. I hope everything is going well today. Unfortunately, if you're watching on Instagram you won't be able to see the screen and maybe some of the questions that I'm popping in there but that's all good, you can still drop your...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Qiangbai Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Weinan Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. When is the best time to use songs in a classroom for young learners? I was an English teacher in Japan for over three and a half years. In that time, I gained a lot of experience teaching young learners. My students were aged from two to fourteen. As I taught these students, I learned a lot about how songs can be used effectively in the classroom. Songs can be used...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Pablo Picasso once said: “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” Teaching is so much different from many other professions that it would be difficult to define it in its entirety in a few pages of text. A surgeon is skillful in what he does and even though he or she may explain the procedure to a patient, the patient is only interested in one thing and that is to know that everything will be alright after the surgery. The patient may have some understanding of what the surgeon will do, but will never be able to use or repeat the procedure except to remember what had taken place. An experienced motor mechanic may be capable of resolving issues with a vehicle requiring attention and even though may point...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences In recent years, the most popular destination for EFL teachers all over the world has been China. China is the country welcoming many foreign teachers, native and non-native, and is probably the country with the most rapid development of the English teaching industry. Online teaching has become just as important as face to face teaching and has been a teacher for an online company for a long time, I have experienced a variety of students, levels, and groups. Therefore, in this essay, I will write about the most common problems Chinese students face and some ways of dealing with them. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Aleksandra Đ. If you are ever in China, you will notice that you will often be required to focus more...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Teaching English in 2021. A few people have told me about their teaching journey already, so keep letting me know what your plans are in terms of teaching English abroad or teaching English online. Somebody said they're interested in teaching online, so that's really cool. Someone new has just joined us from Laos, hi there. We have Margaret who is also teaching online, very cool. I’m going to talk a little bit about teaching English online in this presentation. Juliana says hi, I think you've watched before as I recognize your picture, thanks for tuning in again. It's really good to see new faces and old faces in our TEFL family today. I have prepared some visuals that I'm going to share with you guys later and I will keep an eye on the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I was an English teacher in Japan for over three and a half years. In that time, I gained a lot of experience teaching young learners. My students were aged from two to fourteen. As I taught these students, I learned a lot about how songs can be used effectively in the classroom. Songs can be used to teach sentence structure, routines, vocabulary, and help aid the understanding of instructions in the classroom. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Megan B. Before students can even grasp the language, they can understand rhythm and music. When teaching the youngest students (two years old), we used a lot of chants. Chants are not necessarily music but work much in the same way. Generally, these chants all had the same rhythm but...  [Read more]